PS. I didn't know Newcastle was in Wales.
Hi Richard, closer than you think?
Richard Trevethick (That forgotten Cornishman - the Steam Locomotive pioneer!)
Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He was an early pioneer of
steam-powered road and
rail transport, and his most significant contributions were
the development of the first high-pressure steam engine and the first working railway steam locomotive.[2] The world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the
tramway of the
Penydarren Ironworks, in
Merthyr Tydfil,
Wales.
[3][4]
(Incidentally, this was where the best Steam Coal was mined).
"Pen-y-Darren" locomotive
Trevithick's 1804 locomotive. This full-scale reconstruction is in the
National Waterfront Museum, Swansea.
In 1802 Trevithick built one of his high-pressure steam engines to drive a
hammer at the
Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in
Merthyr Tydfil,
Mid Glamorgan. With the assistance of Rees Jones, an employee of the iron works and under the supervision of Samuel Homfray, the proprietor, he mounted the engine on wheels and turned it into a locomotive. In 1803, Trevithick sold the patents for his locomotives to Samuel Homfray.
Trevithick's steam locomotive could haul ten
tons of iron along the
Merthyr Tydfil Tramroad from
Penydarren (
51°45′03″N 3°22′33″W) to
Abercynon (
51°38′44″N 3°19′27″W), a distance of 9.75 miles (15.69 km). Amid great interest from the public, on 21 February 1804 it successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men the full distance in 4 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed of approximately 2.4 mph (3.9 km/h).
[21]
"Newcastle" locomotive
Christopher Blackett, proprietor of the
Wylam colliery near Newcastle, heard of the success in Wales and wrote to Trevithick asking for locomotive designs. These were sent to John Whitfield at Gateshead, Trevithick's agent, who in 1804 built what was probably the first locomotive to have flanged wheels.
[26]
Ten years later: 1814, George Stephenson built about 16 locos for Newcastle mine coal hauling, then a decade further on George and son Robert Stevenson built the first passenger hauling railway from Stockton to Darlington. (I am a direct descendant of Robert Chicken who was a loco Engine-man (driver) on that line, following his father who worked for George at the Engine works in North Shields, having come from the next village to George, as an engine man at various coal pits at the same time as George... My Chicken family line ran along the same lines that Robert Stephenson built to London, then Swindon, and on to Liverpool and North Wales...
But while we remember the names of the great "Engines" that drove industry, there were thousands of "coal trucks and rails" that carried the loads behind them...
K2